Horror: The Transformation. This play is based on Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland, a novel published in 1798, which itself was inspired by the true story of a farmer who killed his wife and children. It's not done as a period piece, though the clothes and setting aren't strictly modern, either, and a lot of the dialogue retains an eighteenth-century focus and rhythm. The acting is somewhat naturalistic, but there are also many stylized elements. The actors all wear gloves; their eyes are heavily shadowed. Two children are represented by ingeniously constructed puppets. There are long periods during which we, the audience, sit in absolute darkness, and often the theater is filled with odd and insinuating sounds. Music. Panting. A low, breastbone-vibrating rumble. Footsteps. Instrumental shrieks. Many of the technical tricks are brilliant, and the puppet-children are eerily effective throughout. Although neither the plot of Brown's novel nor that of the play entirely holds together, the production succeeds, both as an extended rumination on the first Gothic novel ever published in America, and in creating a real sense of fear and unease in a contemporary audience. Presented by Buntport Theater in rotation with Realism: The Mythical Brontosaurus through December 10, 717 Lipan Street, 720-946-1388, www.buntport.com. Reviewed November 3.
Impulse Theater. Basements and comedy go together like beer and nuts or toddlers and sandboxes. The basement of the Wynkoop Brewing Co., where Impulse Theater performs, is crowded, loud and energetic. Impulse does no prepared skits, nothing but pure improv -- which means that what you see changes every night, and so does the team of actors. These actors set up and follow certain rules and frameworks; they rely on audience suggestions to get these scenes going or to vary the action. Your level of enjoyment depends a lot on whether or not you like the players. Charm is a factor, and so is the ability to take risks. Fortunately, the performers are clever and fast on their feet, willing to throw themselves into the action but never betraying tension or anxiety, perfectly content to shrug off a piece that isn't coming together. The show is funny when the actors hit a groove, but equally funny when they get stymied. So in a way, the improvisers -- and the audience -- can't lose. Presented by Impulse Theater in an open-ended run, Wynkoop Brewing Co., 1634 18th Street, 303-297-2111 or www.impulsetheater.com.
Naked Boys Singing! No false advertising here -- the show's about naked boys singing. The real thing. The full monty. Seven of them, some younger, some a little older, a couple more buff than others, flaunters and flirters and would-be hiders, and every one of them gallantly baring his body and showing his all. The production has no dialogue, plot or characterization; everything hinges on the songs, and some of them are pretty good -- the humorous narcissism of "Perky Porn Star," the Brechtian rhythms of "Jack's Song," with its hilarious choreographic simulation of masturbation; the unexpected devilry of "The Bliss of a Bris." The serious songs work less well. This is a show that needs to be staged with an exuberance and energy that's somewhat lacking in the Theatre Group production. Presented by Theatre Group in an open-ended run, Theatre on Broadway, 13 South Broadway, 303-777-3292, www.theatregroup.org. Reviewed October 27.
Realism: The Mythical Brontosaurus. Known for a prankish and highly literate experimentalism, Buntport Theater is currently experimenting with realism. Of a sort. Jack lies on his bed, alternately reading and staring into space. He's suffering a crisis of faith centered on the status of the brontosaurus. Into Jack's house blunders his sister, Fiona, with her fiancé, Michael. Once she realizes that Jack is closed in his room, Fiona tries everything in her power to get him out. Michael, meanwhile, needing to take a dump, is interested only in some quiet time alone in the bathroom. The quartet of performers is rounded out by Ben, Jack's calm and commonsensical lover, who is far more willing than Fiona to allow Jack to untangle his skein of twisted emotional and philosophical speculation on his own. The play touches on heavy themes, but the writing is light, deft, witty and completely lacking in sentimentality. And it turns out that the Buntporters are skilled and appealing straight actors. Presented by Buntport Theater in rotation with Horror: The Transformation through December 10, 717 Lipan Street, 720-946-1388, www.buntport.com. Reviewed October 20.
September Shoes. The play tells the story of a couple, Gail and Alberto, who are returning to the desert town of Dolores, where they grew up, to attend the funeral of Gail's aunt. This aunt, proprietor of a Chinese-Mexican restaurant, brought Gail up, but Gail's feelings toward her are ambivalent. Alberto, too, has his problems. His younger sister, Ana, was killed in a traffic accident when they were in their teens. In Dolores, the couple encounters two people. There's the cemetery groundsman, Huilo, who tends the graves and carves a list of all the town's dead on what looks like a tall, red pillar but is in fact one leg of an enormous chair Huilo has built so that when God returns to Earth, he'll have somewhere to rest. There's also Cuki, the maid at the hotel where Gail and Alberto are staying. She steals shoes, takes them home and nails them to her wall. She believes she can read character and destiny in their worn contours. But the playwright simply doesn't have the love of language or the skill to evoke the feelings he wants to evoke. The script is full of clunkers. For the most part, the characters are ciphers, and the plot is paper-thin. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company through December 17, Ricketson Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 303-893-4100, www.denvercenter.org. Reviewed November 3.
